Chicago Virtual Offices Didn’t Miss a Beat During the Blizzard of February 2011

Chicago, Illinois was hit especially hard. 1300 flights were canceled at O’Hare and Midway airports. Blizzard status winds battered the city and white-out conditions were reported, as was the unique phenomenon of thundersnow. Schools and universities were closed, at least 900 vehicles were stranded – some motorists trapped for 12 or more hours – and part of the roof of Wrigley Field was blown off. Local officials suggested businesses close down, and many did.
By the time it was over, 20.2 inches of snow had fallen and the city was nearly at a standstill.

While blizzards of this magnitude are not common in the City of Chicago, they can happen. If you had a business located physically in Chicago, you kissed 2, 3 or more days of client contact and sales good-bye. If your business was small to medium in size, this loss might never be made up, impacting everything you worked so hard for. The costs of rental space certainly continued even if you couldn’t make it in, as did other expenses.

But this wouldn’t be the case if your Chicago business was operating as a virtual office. If you had a virtual office in Chicago during those difficult days, business was humming as usual.
Your impressive corporate address might have been physically snowbound, but your customers weren’t inconvenienced in the least. For clients contacting your virtual office on February 1 and 2, it might as well have been springtime.

Highly trained professional receptionists were available to answer phones, faxes could be sent and received, and premium call forwarding reached you wherever you lived or worked. Orders could be taken or constructive conversations could be held, and with voicemail and fax converted to email, all your clients’ information was at your fingertips.

And just remember: you didn’t have to shovel any snow if you’d been operating a virtual office!